[MPG+]

Just finished up one post and ready to start another, ha ha; thank goodness for the astute members of this forum.
Anyway, just received a message from the Maintenance Minder, "A01", that my oil needs to be changed, along with a few inspections. Really? At 6500 miles? I know it uses synthetic oil, which is supposed to be good for 10,000 miles. Plus, as a plugin hybrid, there aren't really 6500 miles on the engine; in fact, I pumped 84.7 gallons since Nov 1, multiplied by EPA estimate of 42 mpg, means the engine has approximately 3557 miles on it.
I'm interested in other's experiences; have looked through the Maintenance Minder threads but no questions like mine. Thanks as always!

 

[2002]

6,500 is probably just for tire rotation in spite of getting a full A01 message. That's because it never gives just tire rotation message, it always tosses in the other two whether needed or not. To confirm this is the case in your situation, go into the settings menu where you can reset the maintenance minder, but only reset tire rotation. When you do, most likely the other two will go away also, that's what happens for most people. After a few thousand more miles when A01 pops again, resetting just tire rotation might not make the oil message go away, which means it's actually time for an oil change, at least according to the maintenance minder. But even then it's somewhat dubious because it's only based on total miles driven, with as far as we know no consideration as you mentioned between EV and HV miles.

The owners manual says that in any event the oil should be changed no less than once a year. I think that is somewhat reasonable even with low gas usage, so I ignore the minder messages and just reset them, and change my oil and filter once a year. Actually I did my first oil change after just seven months of ownership, but that's because it was 12 months after the car was manufactured, so I figured go ahead and do it. I will do the next oil change when the car is two years old (per the mfg date).

 

[MPG+]

Great, sounds good and thank you 2002. I just spotted other related discussions which basically support what you said. I actually had the tires rotated at 5800 miles, so good to go there.
Regarding this site, it would be great if they put answers to some of these recurring questions in one location that could be checked before starting a new post.

 

[4sallypat]

When you rotate your tires, you can manually reset that part yourself and the oil change interval will re-adjust.

 

[obermd]

How long (calendar) has it been since your last Oil Change? The Clarity wants an annual oil change even if you haven't used the ICE that much.

 

[MPG+]

Oil Change

Hi obermd,
Just purchased 10/31/2019.

 

[obermd]

Hi obermd,
Just purchased 10/31/2019.

And it has 6,500 miles on it already. Was this a dealer demo car? If so it may not have much mileage as an EV, which would make the oil change about right based on engine mileage.